Evaki

Before the sun belonged to anybody but a vulture, there was a house in the dark where two boys went whenever they did not know what to do next. The woman who lived there always knew. She was their aunt, or possibly their grandmother. The man who told the story was not sure which, and the man who wrote it down left the doubt standing.

Almost everything known about Evaki comes from one telling. The German ethnologist Karl von den Steinen heard it among the Bakairi of central Brazil on his second Xingu expedition of 1887 to 1888, and printed it in Berlin in 1894 in *Unter den Naturvölkern Zentral-Brasiliens*, spelling her name Ewaki. Theodor Koch-Grünberg reprinted the story in his 1920 collection of South American tales under the title of its heroes, Keri and Kame. Later accounts of her lead back to those pages.

She enters the story as the one who tells the truth. Keri and Kame were twins raised by a jaguar foster father named Oka, who had never told them how their mother died, because he was ashamed of his own part in what followed. Evaki told them. Their mother, Nimagakaniro, had been killed by the jaguar’s mother, Mero, who tore out her eyes. The boys went and killed Mero, and burned her, and the crackle of that fire is said to be visible in the sky still.

After that the pattern sets in. The twins arrive, Evaki names a thing the world lacks, and they go to get it. She stays behind in the dark and waits.

Her first errand was the sun. It was kept by the red king vulture, and there was only daylight when he chose to come out with it. Keri hid inside the foreleg of a tapir that had fallen into the vultures’ black hole in the sky, while Kame sat on a branch in the shape of a small yellow songbird and reported what was going on. When the king vulture finally bent to open the carcass, Keri seized him and would not let go. A white vulture was sent to fetch the ransom. He came back first with the dawn, then with the moon, and only on the third trip with the sun. In those days, the teller insisted, the sun was made of toucan and red macaw feathers and the moon of yellow oropendola feathers.

Then came a problem nobody had planned for. With the sun set free, it was light all the time. Keri thought and thought, and went to Evaki, and she had no idea either. It is the one moment in the story where she comes up empty. Keri solved it himself by making a great pot and turning it over the sun and moon. Lift the pot and it is day.

Sleep was next. The twins could not manage it, and Evaki sent them to Po the lizard, who owned sleep and received them kindly. They slept well in her house and left with a hammock as a gift. A mile down the path they lay down to try again and nothing happened. So they walked back, caught the lizard, and pulled off a large piece of her eyelid. She was furious. They could sleep.

Fire she simply ordered them to bring. It lived in the eyes of the savanna fox, who struck it out whenever he wanted to light wood. The twins hid in a fish and a snail in his trap, doused his cooking fire until he stormed off in disgust, blew the embers back to life and carried them home to her. Water came last, from three pots owned by the water snake. Two held good water and one held water that killed. The boys smashed the two good pots, and the rivers Paranatinga, Ronuro and Kulisehu ran out across the country.

Her strength, then, is knowledge. She knows who killed whom, which animal holds which treasure, and where its house stands. She never fights and never travels. The limits are just as plain. She cannot fetch anything herself, and when a question has no owner to rob, as with the endless daylight, she has nothing to offer.

A different Evaki circulates today: a goddess of night, sometimes shown as a bat, who lids the sun in her own pot each evening and steals sleep from the lizards to share with the world. The Bakairi telling gives the pot to Keri and the theft to both twins. It does not call her a goddess of anything. It never describes her face, names her parents, or says what became of her once the rivers were running.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Evaki in Bakairi mythology?

Evaki, spelled Ewaki in the original record, is the elder kinswoman of the twin heroes Keri and Kame in the mythology of the Bakairi people of central Brazil. The story calls her their aunt or grandmother without settling which. She tells the twins how their mother died and sends them out to win the sun, sleep, fire and water.

Is Evaki a goddess of night?

The Bakairi story recorded by Karl von den Steinen does not call Evaki a goddess of night. In that telling she is an adviser who sends Keri and Kame on errands. The picture of Evaki as a night goddess or bat who shuts the sun in a pot comes from later retellings.

Who put the sun in a pot in the Bakairi myth?

Keri put the sun in a pot. After the twins won the sun from the king vulture it was light all the time, and Evaki could not tell Keri what to do about it. Keri made a large pot and turned it over the sun and moon, and day comes when the pot is lifted.

How did Keri and Kame get sleep?

Evaki told Keri and Kame that sleep belonged to Po the lizard. The twins slept well in the lizard’s house, but could not sleep once they left, so they went back and pulled off part of the lizard’s eyelid. With eyelids of their own they could sleep.

Where does the story of Evaki come from?

The story of Evaki comes from one Bakairi telling collected by the German ethnologist Karl von den Steinen on his Xingu expedition of 1887 to 1888 and published in 1894. Theodor Koch-Grünberg reprinted it in 1920 as the tale of Keri and Kame. Later accounts of Evaki go back to that text.

Related Entries

Guaraci, Jaci, Omama, Jurupari, Tupã, Jasy, Hunahpu, Nyx